The scanning format of a television system largely determines the maximum spatial and dynamic resolution of an image displayed thereon. The resolution, in turn, has a major effect on the perceived image quality. One particular scanning format parameter, the frame rate or frequency, determines how well the television can display objects in motion. The field rate of an interlaced image is twice the effective frame rate, since interlacing draws only half of the image (the odd or even numbered lines) at a time. For an interlaced image, image quality depends on deinterlacing 50 and 60 Hz broadcast video signals.
An existing deinterlacing method uses a progressive scanning format and high scan rate to improve the image quality. One simple method for increasing scan rate is repeatedly displaying a previous frame saved in a buffer. The interpolated frame is then identical to the previous frame. While this approach works well for static or motionless images, it produces poor quality in dynamic or motion images that have frames continuously changing. For these images, repeatedly displaying the identical frame may produce undesirable artifacts including flickering, that tire the human eye. As television displays become larger, flickering artifacts become more noticeable.
Another existing deinterlacing method uses motion estimation compensation based on image segments to interpolate frames. This deinterlacing method improves flickering artifacts but cannot obtain motion vectors of covered or uncovered areas, and thus, it cannot improve frame interpolation in those areas. That is, motion estimation compensation cannot estimate and process the covered or uncovered areas well and, therefore, it cannot accurately interpolate frames that improve image quality.